America's Worst Deadbeat Dad Joe Walsh Would Like Another Butt-Kicking Please

• If you enjoy having all the last laughs at the former congressman and forever jerkface deadbeat dead loser Joe Walsh -- and really, who among us doesn't? -- The Hill has some EXCELLENT NEWS for you:

  Controversial former Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.) is talking up a Tea Party challenge to Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.).

  “I am very seriously considering challenging him in a primary,” Walsh told The Hill on Thursday. “Mark Kirk has got to be challenged.”

  This isn't the first time Walsh has suggested he might try to teabag Sen. Kirk from the super-far rightwing, even though his chances of actually becoming the next senator from Illinois are approximately dick. It took all of one term for Illinois voters to decide they totally despise Walsh SO HARD and send him packing. And while Sen. Kirk might be vulnerable to a Democrat in sometimes-blue Illinois, he's not exactly vulnerable to a loathsome deadbeat radio personality who gets off complaining about how unfair it is that he can't use racial slurs on the radio because what about his First Amendment and also, did you notice that war veteran Tammy Duckworth isalwaysgoing on and on about all those limbs she gave to her country, like that's even a big deal? Yeah, hard to imagine why Illinois booted him from office after two years and replaced him with Duckworth. Still, according to "people," Joe Walsh is secretly very popular!

  “Independents and even moderates in this state have gotten to a point where they really like and respect the fact that a politician says it like it is. All these things that Joe Walsh says that are controversial, privately and even publicly a lot of voters like what I like to say,” Walsh said.

  Oh right. Joe Walsh is secretly very popular -- according to Joe Walsh. But that's about it. Still, while this is probably some kind of sad publicity stunt more than an actual attempt to get back into office, we're keeping our fingers crossed that he's kind of serious. Because who wouldn't love to beat the nation's most infamous deadbeat one more time?

• Probably nothing to worry about:  

  The U.S. National Security Agency has figured out how to hide spying software deep within hard drives made by Western Digital, Seagate,Toshiba and other top manufacturers, giving the agency the means to eavesdrop on the majority of the world's computers, according to cyber researchers and former operatives.

• A fascinating read about how the Dodgers had to confront racism in Florida during spring training when they were trying to call Jackie Robinson up to the big leagues:

  How Jim Crow got cut from spring training was, in retrospect, a small but significant episode in the history of the American civil rights movement.

  Florida — whose Grapefruit League has included locations like Bradenton, Dunedin, St. Petersburg, Sarasota, Tampa, Clearwater and Lakeland — has been attracting spring training teams since the late 1880s.

  But Florida was part of the Old South — it was the third state to join the Confederacy, two months before the Civil War — and there were extensive segregation laws on its books. [...]

  By 1948, with Robinson a full-fledged Brooklyn Dodger, Rickey and the team owner Walter O’Malley opted to confront the spring training problem head-on by taking over a decommissioned naval air station in sleepy Vero Beach, Fla., which soon became a national baseball landmark called Dodgertown.

  Although Robinson found Dodgertown “like being confined to a reservation,” the camp, with its own barracks and dining halls, would liberate the team from Jim Crow. Players called their new baseball diamonds “Ebbets Field No. 2.”

• From our friends at Happy Nice Time People, some decidedly not-teevee news:  What bankers really think of Presidents Day. Just click and enjoy.

• Via Joe My God, we do our public spaces a little differently here in the Bay Area:

  A leather-themed public plaza would be built on the roadway outside the Eagle bar in San Francisco's South of Market neighborhood under a proposal backed by the developer of a new mixed-use housing and retail development.

  The plan would turn a block of 12th Street, between Harrison and Bernice, fronting the gay-owned bar into a parklet with design elements celebrating SOMA's ties to both the LGBT and leather communities. Since the 1950s the neighborhood has been home to a number of gay bars and nightclubs, many catering to the leather scene.

• Go ahead, make all the wiener jokes you want:  

  

• The beautiful and amazing singer and songwriter Lesley Gore died of lung cancer Monday.

  With songs like “It’s My Party,” “Judy’s Turn to Cry” and the indelibly defiant 1964 single “You Don’t Own Me” — all recorded before she was 18 — Ms. Gore made herself the voice of teenage girls aggrieved by fickle boyfriends, moving quickly from tearful self-pity to fierce self-assertion.

  While many people may be bittersweetly remembering her for some of her greatest hits from way back when, we are personally wiping onion tears from our face over this most excellent recording of hers, from 2012: